Report on Colbert

After all of the hubbub (sp?) I finally watched Steven Colbert's routine at the White House Correspondents Dinner. I have been reading the blogs and the pundits who are arguing that he bombed, that no one laughed, that his attacks on the President were inappropriate.

Watch the video (Slate.com has it) and you'll discover:

a) C-Span showed shots of those people who did not laugh. There was steady laughter throughout.

2) Several jokes got raves, including the Glacier and DC-marshmallow jokes (Watch the video). Even Antonin Scalia cracked up at the mention of his famed gestures incident.

3) Several jokes did indeed fall flat, especially the one about the generals standing on a bank of computers and ordering men into battle. I didn't think that was very funny.

4) Colbert was being Colbert. Watch the show before you book a guest at that dinner.

5) He was hysterical.

6) Satire is not comedy. It is not a standup routine or an SNL opening monologue. It is, as my Freshman English professor, Chris Rawson told us, an indirect attack on a serious subject. An Attack. On Serious subjects.

7) Of course the president didn't laugh. It isn't funny.